wow this new folding client program is pretty good. it uses all cores, and detects the gpu. my gpu only shows as getting used at about 10% with spikes up to 20%. i've only been running it a short time, as i've just now installed it. are there any tweaks i should know about?

hmmm. now it's showing 0% gpu use, i guess i had the graphic part open and it was showing that. how does it process through the gpu? does it only work on cuda enabled nvidia cards, or can it work on my old ati 3850?

i think i'm just doing a demo project, and haven't downloaded a real project yet. any tips on getting this thing started?

Stanford U. has some tech info plus recommendations in this link about GPU folding.. http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-ATI .
And WIKI has a lengthy article, also.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@Home .
Most newer graphics cards are likely candidates for the F@H process.. but older ones may not be.
The F@H client must be able to detect the CPU or GPU core model, and apply the "divisor" process so each core can be optimally used, while not interfering with needs by the user or donor.
Depending on the disseminating process, some steps may be extremely intricate, or very simple.. thus a reading of maximum or minimum core use at any time.

now installed on a laptop with quad-core sandy bridge and quadro 3000m vga chip (and at a new location... not my home machine)... everything is running fine.

i wonder if the hyper-threading machines would be better to set affinity on threads set core count to 4, as to get multi threading but have each physical core at full power? i guess i would have to physically set the correct cpu core affinity in the task manager too, (or it could pick the virtual core and its physical core on its own)...
or would breaking the project into 8 pieces with 8 cpu cores working half strength on each piece be faster? this is the default setting.

Best to set maximum core usage to no more than 90% per client/core designation. This allows some 'headroom' for background processes.
For my present setup, I run a Pentium 4 Prescott 2.8 with HT, (ASRock Conroe 865) and I have two separate F@H processes active (different drives, folder names). No problem with operations, and can run other apps easily.
The F@H clients are designed to optimize their performance, yet readily cede to any user needs on the computer. The newer OS versions can control multiple-core (true) CPU types, and assign semi-dedicated processes to each as required. Best to allow the OS to relegate usage of processing per actual core, rather than manual settings. "Handing off" a process between cores can evoke delays and errors.